Why Should I Be Lead By You?

During a leadership course I attended sometime back, we were supposed to go round the table and share some of our own insights and thoughts about leadership. A coursemate shared,"As a leader, how would you answer the question that your subordinate/follower would ask you - Why should I be lead by you?"

I have a few suggestions for the reply:

• Because leaders create opportunities to learn. A leader creates opportunities to learn - from him and from oneself. I don't believe a leader knows everything under the sun. They are not omnipotent. There is as much that he/she can learn from their subordinates, just as the subordinates learn from the leader. Through the requirements and demands of the boss, oneself can discover one's potential and ability to assume the task. One can also explore many ways to complete certain task.

• Because leaders bring focus the organisation. The leader is well aware of the strategy and direction of the organisation. He sees the big picture and is able to focus his subordinates in executing successfully today and not just planning for tomorrow

• Because leaders are able to work with and influence people. A leader is an influencer, not dictator and sway others with deep industry knowledge, connections throughout organisation and ability to communicate effectively across the entire organisation and beyond.

• Because leaders drives changes and takes care of externalities. A good leader in itself is an excellent change agent and is highly adaptable to changes. They take changes in good stride and is able to assimilate perfectly into the work flow. In this instance, followers can take to such leaders for direction and work towards the change.

In the nutshell, good leader are humane and charismatic in their own way, hence making people want to be lead by you. There is no one fix formula to be a good leader, as everyone will have their own personal styles. Most importantly, leaders make a habit of sensing, framing and aligning, so that they are prepared for the call, no matter in what regards, which can arise any moment.

Why Planning Fails?

Why does planning fail when it is usually people with the brightest brains who will come together to put these plans together?

I see several reasons why planning fails:

• Overly delegative to the wrong people. Very typical of these important strategic planning exercises is a big parade of management consultants telling the top management what is wrong with the company and what should be done to fix it in order to move it forward. Equally bad is to delegate this important planning exercises to internal staff who don't exactly have much direct stake in this entire exercise e.g. frontline managers, customer service department etc.

• Too Rigid and Routinised. Planning never succeeds if it is just viewed as an annual template filling exercise. Most of the time when planning cycle has arrived, there would be a flurry of forms and templates to fill and key performance indicators to consolidate. In this fashion, there is never really true debate of where the company should be heading strategically and what should be done to reach there.

• Only Static Analysis. Strategic planning is about a longer term view and sees into the far horizon. Hence, analysis should always be taken with a broader, long term view. Sadly, many organisations are too bogged by planning by numbers and they tend to be very myopic and static. They analyse issues of today, when in a strategic sense, they should be looking at issues of tomorrow. Only so, would they be able to see how the organisation can stand in the times of tomorrow.

• Garbage In, Garbage Out. This is the most common reason why planning fails. If there is no good inputs towards the plan to start with, then the output can never be expected to be robust and insightful.

• Not Linked to Operations Or Implementation. The real value in a strategic plan is the successful implementation of that plan. Many great plans fail to take off as it does not link to operations or implementation. Great plans only remain as great in paper and writing and does not contribute value unless successfully implemented.

• Resistance to Change. People are typically resistant to change and prefer to stay in their comfort zone. With people who are anti-change, it would be hard for the organisation to successfully push through their strategy. Hence, it is important that communication of the plans be handled carefully, as well as the proper managment of such resistors.